Wireless Internet connection rocks!!

HammerFour · Aug 24, 2006

We just switched from Direcway to a wireless isp, so far it's been great, no dropped signal when we have weather, or when Baltimore has weather ( where the satellite downlink is ).

There have been a couple times when the sytem was down for a bit in the morning after large thunderstorms came thru, but the 3 guys who run the wisp get it going again pretty quickly. It's pretty funny actually, they will call us once they have everything reset and verify that it's working well for us again, nice customer service.

kossetx · Aug 24, 2006

Guys, This bring to mind a question. Hope I'm not hijacking the thread. I have 2 houses that are 143 miles apart. Is there a way to get internet and satalite tv that I can take between the 2 of them, instead of having 2 bills, one for each house? TIA, MP

MikePA · Aug 25, 2006

Regarding satellite TV and satellite Internet access, you could set up a dish at both places and take the receiver unit back and forth between the 2 locations. There's no way to do the same thing with DSL or cable internet that I am aware of. Your post wasn't clear if you wanted satellite and internet access from both places at the same time or not.

If so, there's no way to only have 1 bill and share the access, unless you could, somehow, set up a private link between the 2 locations.

Maxfli · Aug 25, 2006

Our house is completely surrounded by large oak trees. I have been trying to get wireless for some time. Last week the guy calls and says we have upgraded the tower 2.7miles from my house to Non-Line-of-Site 900mhz service. The guy tells me first walk around the roof and the yard and see where you best get the signal. So far I have not found a place where I can say the service is constant.

ratter · Aug 25, 2006

There's a WISP in my area, but I found the *downside* to the fact that so many of them are small, one-man operations. Meaning, I couldn't get him to do anything! I talked to him once or twice about doing a site survey, etc. After that he wouldn't even return my calls, let alone hook me up with service. I ended up paying the cable company over two grand to extend the line to my house.

Out of the blue, a few weeks ago, I went from getting no cell service at home to getting full blown, full bars digital service with my Cingular phone. So if I hadn't paid for the cable line, I would probably be using the Cingular wireless plan on their Edge network.

barticus73 · Aug 25, 2006

knute_m said:
I live where wireless is not available -- and certainly not anything as fancy as DSL. Our phone lines were put in back in the 1950s, and we don't even have good phone service. Dial-up was worse than useless.

But, I do have reasonable cell phone coverage. My cell phone provider (Cingular) offers their version of "wireless" Internet. I have a card that plugs into my laptop, which I then have networked so that my wife can access the Internet with her computer. Because of where we live, I need an external antenna on it, but it works. I get between 100 and 200 kbps, which is not lightning speed, but it sure beats dialup.

We've found that we really like it when we travel along any of the major Interstates. If my wife is driving, I can be surfin' on TBN!

Knute

I am interested in this setup. How much does it run you a month? Right now I have ISDN which is 128kbs but also $80/month. No otion for DSL or cable either. And I can see the cable line from my house but they want $3600 to run a wire to the house, lol.

Also, how do you find out what WISP's service your area?

BillG_in_TX · Aug 25, 2006

barticus73 said:
Also, how do you find out what WISP's service your area?

One of the most comprehensive WISP listings can be found here:
Wireless ISPs & WiFi Directory

The search function isn't the best, but it does show coverage in Indiana, PA and southwest toward Saltsburg.

MikePA · Aug 25, 2006

barticus73 said:
And I can see the cable line from my house but they want $3600 to run a wire to the house, lol.

Friends of mine had the same problem and the phone company wanted that much to run a DSL connection from the closest pole to their house.

Since it was their property, they rented a 'ditch witch' and dug a trench from the pole to their house. Phone company came back, ran the cable, hooked it up and my friends back filled the trench. Saved a lot of money.

jinman · Aug 31, 2006

BillG_in_TX said:
As Jinman noticed, this link has lots of N. TX cities listed.

Thanks Bill!

Your link was enough to get me off "dead-center" and call a WISP.

This morning we got a wireless installed. Our house is tall enough that we were able to link to a tower in Alvord, TX that is exactly 6.3 miles away. The provider said they usually work out to 6 miles, but we got lucky. Everything seems quite nice so far. The connection was $326 including the 1st month's fee, so that was about 1/2 of what I was looking at with satellite. Our provider is Willow Creek (wccs.net) out of Bridgeport.

BillG_in_TX · Aug 31, 2006

jinman said:
The connection was $326 including the 1st month's fee, so that was about 1/2 of what I was looking at with satellite. Our provider is Willow Creek (wccs.net) out of Bridgeport.

Jim,

That sounds like a great deal, since it looks like $200 of that is a deposit on the equipment. What's the speed that they advertise, and have you noticed any increase over dial-up?